Fall Armyworm: A new collaboration to disseminate best management practices to farmers
From the 13th to the 15th of November 2017, USAID and CIMMYT held a Regional Training and Awareness Generation Workshop on Fall Armyworm Pest Management for Eastern Africa in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Participants from 11 countries attended the workshop to discuss short, medium and long term strategies to control Fall Armyworm in Africa. Following its…
Plant Doctors in Ghana go digital
The operation of plant clinics in Ghana received a major boost with the introduction of digital devices to facilitate the work of plant doctors. The introduction of tablets and Android phones has proven to help plant doctors improve the quantity and quality of data generated from plant clinic operations.
Photo story: e-plant clinics in Sri Lanka
E-plant clinics in Sri Lanka were launched in June 2015. Since then 190 Plant doctors have been trained and equipped with tablets, with the Sri Lankan Ministry of Agriculture funding half of the total number of tablets themselves. Being equipped with tablets means Plant doctors give higher quality recommendations, and the data collection process is also…
9 ways to get climate-smart agriculture to more people
This is the final post as part of our Climate Smart Agriculture Week (20 – 24 November 2017) Understanding which agricultural practices work best, and where, to halt the impacts of climate change is one thing. But making sure those practices are adopted by communities – farmers, decision and policy makers – is another thing.
Local innovation as source of adaptation and resilience to climate change
This is the second guest post as part of our Climate Smart Agriculture Week (20 – 24 November 2017) Climate change poses major challenges to small-scale African farmers, whose own locally developed strategies to address these challenges provide entry points to sustainable processes of adapting to climate change. Partners in Prolinnova – a global network…
Blame animals only when you aren’t smart
This is the first guest post as part of our Climate Smart Agriculture Week (20 – 24 November 2017) Despite us humans being the most intelligent among all living organisms it seems we have lowered ourselves to blaming the animals we farm for major environmental concerns, including; climate change, water depletion and pollution, land degradation…
Data democracy: a new age
The power of data over our lives is hard to overestimate. It governs how we understand and interact with the modern world, how it is measured and controlled. So, what is being done to utilise open data for global food security and nutrition?
The many P’s of partnership
Peace, partnerships, projects, production, perspectives, participation and passion to name just a few. These were all squeezed into a side event at CFS44, organised by CABI, entitled ‘How Cross-Sectoral Partnerships Help Smallholders Deliver a More Food Secure Future‘.
At loggerheads over agroforestry
Everyone knows forests are home to a wealth of biodiversity, with the Amazon alone hosting a quarter of global biodiversity. It is also now well established that diversity in crop production increases a farmer’s resilience to environmental stresses and shocks – from extreme weather to pests. In terms of ending poverty, food insecurity and environmental degradation,…
The chicken or the egg?
“I started with just 100 chickens”, begins Mr Jean Claude Ruzibiza. He goes on to explain how from small beginnings he has now become Managing Director of Rwanda Best, a farm producing 4,500 eggs a day and growing fruit and veg to satisfy a significant part of nearby Kigali’s hungry population. With malnutrition in the world…